WEBVTT - David Lynch Retrospective 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:06.519 Warning, Today's episode will contain some minor spoilers for various 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:12.080 David Lynch films and television shows, notably Twin Peaks. There 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:14.960 is no film, it's all an illusion. That's a David 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:35.640 Lynch reference, so be warned. Hello, Naman's Jason Concepcion. 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:38.519 And I'm Rosday Nike and welcome back to X. 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:41.040 Ray Vision of that podcast or wed I'm deep. Okay, 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:43.960 your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture coming from 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:47.080 my podcast where we'll bring you three one two, three 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:52.880 Godays episodes a week every Tuesday and Thursday for sure, 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:56.640 and then an extra day thrown in there. You sometimes Wednesday, sometimes. 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:01.120 You never know when it's coming. And into episode, we 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.400 have got our coffees and our pies, cherry pies, and 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:07.399 we are here to honor the late David Lynch. As 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:09.800 soon as he passed, we were in the group chat 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:12.319 we were like, it's got to be done. So today 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:15.240 we're gonna do it. We're gonna look back a time 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:17.600 capsule of all the film and television works so you 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:20.240 should add to your collection and check out and how 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:22.840 they impacted us. And in the back matter, we're going 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:26.200 to discuss what makes Lynch such an iconic figure in 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:28.120 cinema and pop culture history. 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:33.040 But first previously on Well Rosie. David Lynch passed away 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:38.080 recently and I'm here in La. You're here in La. 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:44.880 There is currently a memorial, a public memorial of sorts 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:49.800 at the La the Burbank Bob's Big Boy, where the 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:52.760 filmmaker would often get lunch around two three. 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:57.080 Drink his coffee in his chocolate milkshake. You can see 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:00.760 him to Luca Lake, I think regularly. That's one thing 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:04.240 I think people don't understand about the magic of La is, 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:08.320 like it is magical to be here. Generally there's palm trees, 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:12.280 there's sun, there's beaches, there's mountains, there's there's you know, 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:14.840 horrible fires that we were living through and sending our 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.480 hopes and prayers to that. But like there is it's 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.280 still a movie making town. Like you can just be 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.200 hanging out and just see someone like David Lynch in 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:27.880 a diner or go to a screening and see some 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:30.720 like incredible artists that you never thought you would get 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:33.160 to see in real life. Like it's pretty magical in 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:35.640 that way. It still is a movie making town. And 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:39.080 I think someone like Lynch because of his you know, 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:43.400 unique form and play within film, but also his like 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:47.760 strange accessibility and sincerity, Like people knew that you could 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:49.880 just go that him and John Carpenter would be there, 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:54.040 just like having lunch at Big Boy. Yeah, and now 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.000 there's a very beautiful, very big probably soon to get 0:02:57.040 --> 0:02:58.360 too big. Might have to get it. 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:00.400 As soon to get too big. It might be too 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:04.760 big as we speak, When did you first become aware 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:08.800 of David Lynch the guy? Not just because I remember 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:11.440 the I first saw Elevant man like as a child 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:14.000 and that was the first one I saw, But I 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:16.680 didn't know about him until years later. So when did 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:19.520 you first become aware of him as a personality as 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:19.799 a person? 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:23.320 Okay, so before I was even born. My mom always 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:28.240 blames this for me being like weird. But she she 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:31.720 went to the Rio Cinema in Dalston and when she 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:34.880 was pregnant and they did a mom and baby screening 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:38.160 of Blue Velvet and you could like take your kid 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:40.640 and go and see it, and she'd had it was good, 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:44.040 So she went and she was pregnant and she was 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:48.320 like so mortified when Dennis Hopper like had the gas 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:50.760 mask on and he was like I want to get 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:53.880 back inside when he's like trying to, you know, And 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:56.120 and she left, and she's always been like, you know, 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:58.720 maybe that's why, like you like all this weird stuff 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.080 because when you were in you I went to see 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:05.080 Blue Velvet. But I when I was a kid, my 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:09.840 best friend donoll we were just into like really weird 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:14.280 stuff and I we had probably already seen the June movie, 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.800 but I do really distinctly remember we went to see 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:20.279 My Holland Drive at the cinema in two thousand and one, 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:24.240 so we would have been thirteen, and we specifically like 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.320 went to see that movie because we like David Lynch. 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.640 We'd gotten old David Lynch movies out of the video 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:33.520 store that we had where we lived in Hackney. And yeah, 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:37.200 I remember really distinctly both of us just being like, WHOA, 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:41.120 what like a crazy movie? And that was really another 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.880 step towards my kind of cinephile story. So that was 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:48.280 definitely it. And I still hold like a very special 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:50.920 place in my heart for My Holland Drive, and I 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.960 still get that feeling every time, like if you're driving 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:57.080 in LA and you see My Holland Drive, I'm always 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:00.279 like that's my Holland Drive, like the there is like 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.120 I know this, It's from movies. So I would definitely 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:05.520 say that was a big one. But I think the 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:07.839 reason that we were even aware of who he was 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.480 was probably because of Twin Peaks for sure. 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:14.320 I think for me, I first saw The Elephant Man 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:16.719 as a kid. It was playing on cable all the time, 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.600 and I was very, very affected by that movie. It's 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:24.719 a tremendously one of the most beautiful modern black and 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:31.560 white films, I think, yeah, and it is a heartbreaking 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:37.880 film the end. It's about a man who is born 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:42.520 with severe physical deformities to the point that he can't 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:45.880 He has to sleep standing like sitting up because he 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:52.599 lays down he'll suffocate. And he's kept in a like 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:56.480 as a circus performer, like in a cage. But he's 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:59.920 very sensitive, very intelligent, and as he says in the 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.159 film many times, not an animal. He's mellows in this 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:07.960 really affecting way, and it really it really it. As 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:09.960 a kid, it really broke my heart. I was like, 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:11.520 oh my god, this is one of the most sad 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.159 things I've ever seen. And then of course I saw Dune, 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:17.440 but I didn't make that this is all as a kid, 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:20.000 so I didn't make the connection of you know, David 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:22.960 Lynch and as as a director, and I don't think 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:26.240 I had a tremendous idea about directors and what they did. 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:28.040 So and then I saw Dune, which I loved as 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:29.920 a kid. Although I found it tremendously weird. 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.440 It's very very weird, but very appealing to the eye 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:36.520 of a child because there's so much great stuff going on. 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:38.240 That I thought it was great and I still think 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.440 it's great. And then and then you're right, Twin Peaks 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.760 was a sensation. But as a person, David Lynch, I 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:48.880 want to say, this is sometime during the Twin Peaks run, 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:50.920 And again I was very young, and I didn't have 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:53.320 a lot of parental supervision, and I was always up 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:57.360 late watching late night television, like starting in the fourth grade, 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:59.960 fourth fifth grade, I just would stay up late and 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:04.719 lunch like Letterman and Lynch appeared on and My he 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.600 talked about Twin Peaks a little bit. And then I 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.440 recall David's like, you brought something for us to see 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:13.560 and he's like yeah, and he brings out like this 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:18.040 collection of photographs and he had he talked about how 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:20.360 he was walking around outside his house and he saw 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:23.640 his line of ants, so he took a toothpick, and 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:27.200 on the toothpick he mounted a ball of meat and 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:29.560 cheese I think, and then he covered the meat and 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:34.160 cheeseball with clay, and then you know, carved like eye 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.120 holes and then a mouth and I think nose holes 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:40.040 and like these little kind of like Shrek like ears 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:43.640 out of clay, and the holes allowed the ants to 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:45.520 get in, and then he mounted it right in the 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:47.960 path of the ants and then just took pictures of 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:50.320 like the ants going into the eye holes and like 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:53.400 carving out the meat and taking it away. And I 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.840 had never seen anything like that on television. Don't work television, 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.040 I'm like, and it was I was like, Wow, what 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:04.600 a tremendously weird guy. And I've always been fascinated by, like, 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.800 truly sincerely weird people. And that was my first understanding 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:11.120 of David Lynch's, like oh shit, he's weird. And then 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:15.240 it wasn't until college that I watched Blue Velvet and 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:19.840 was just blown away by the everything of it. We'll 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:23.000 describe what that means in a bit, but I mean, 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:25.760 what would you say, are the hallmarks of David Lynch. 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:29.000 What would you say are the themes and the devices 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.560 that many of his films have in common and the 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:33.880 things that he would you can feel that he's interested 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:34.720 in through his movies. 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:39.120 I think, like a sincere interest in the concept of 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:41.560 like America and Americana. 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:46.720 Yeah, and that's right. It's a Midwestern guy from small 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:47.760 town America. 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:51.160 What does it mean to be in America whether you're 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:55.440 in a rural area, which Twin Peaks explores this kind 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:59.200 of idea of like the idyllic notion of like nature 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:03.800 and living with nature, and the dangers and the secrets 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:07.160 that hide behind small town life, which is also very 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:11.040 apparent in like Blue Velvet. But then also like Wild 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:15.080 at Heart with Laura Dunn and Nick Cage, that is 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:17.760 a movie that's very concerned with this kind of like 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:23.480 over the top, violent, embellished kind of road trip version 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:27.199 of what Americana can be, Like Las Vegas driving down 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.360 Route sixty six. He was just a man who was 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:35.360 very interested in telling a story about the place that 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:38.320 he lived. And I think that that goes from anything 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:42.360 from like Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, Wild at Heart, 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:45.320 More Holland drive. Obviously, then you're getting into the very 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:50.160 specifically LA movies, but also the straight Story, which I 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:52.800 think a lot of people have really been revisiting, which 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:55.400 seemed at the time in nineteen ninety nine like this 0:09:55.600 --> 0:10:01.600 just absolute diversion from David Lynch's which was generally seen 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:05.319 as controversial and shocking and very adult. And the straight 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.160 story is just about a guy who drives his lawn 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.360 mower across the country to see his friends. Yeah, based 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.600 on a true story, and it's very ironically. It really 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:18.800 reminds me of another one of my favorite Stone Cold widows, 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:22.920 Berna Herzog. He wrote this book about walking across the 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:25.720 country to see his friend who had cancer. And I 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:29.480 think that there is this similarity of interest in both 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.920 the tiniest stories, like what would drive somebody to do that? 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:35.360 How much do you have to love someone? And there's 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:38.240 this very affecting moment in the straight story that a 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:41.559 lot of people have been sharing where the guy's like, oh, 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:44.000 you came all this way from me, and he's like, yeah, 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.600 I did. And it's kind of this acknowledgment of like 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:52.120 humanity and friendship and male friendship and platonic love, and 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:55.040 it's this really tiny moment in what is like a 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.040 very vast story, and what was seen at the time 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:00.120 is like why did he make this? But when you 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:01.760 look at it in the context of the rest of 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:03.600 his movies, I think it makes a lot of sense. 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:08.080 I also would say, obviously like surrealism, especially if you're 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:10.520 looking at like Eraise Ahead, which I think was another 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.040 movie that I saw really really young that scared me. 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:15.439 Everyone was like, oh my god, you don't want to 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:20.800 see the erais Ahead baby, like nobody film. Yeah, Yeah, definitely, 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:24.640 like wait what and that was from nineteen seventy seven. 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:28.360 It feels very ahead of its sky. It feels very 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:30.880 akin to like a Tetsuo The Iron Man, or like 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:34.560 international cinema cinema from Japan around the same time, or 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:36.800 in the late eighties. 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:40.400 In early twentieth century films like Metropolis. 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:44.600 Yeah, very that's definitely very in his vein, and I 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:46.920 think that mixture. 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:49.560 I think is very much referenced in the opening of 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:49.920 it too. 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:52.640 Yeah, oh man, I used to love that movie. Yeah, 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.520 I would say, I think another thing that comes across 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:58.560 in all of his movies. Whether he's acting in a movie, 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:03.440 everyone's been sharing his performance as John Houston. In Spielberg's 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:05.760 The Fableman's that came out recently, he had like a 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:09.200 short one horizon. Where's the horizon? I think about it 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:13.600 a lot now. Whatever is at the top, it's interesting, 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:18.439 it's at the bottom of the bottom, it's interesting. The 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:24.120 middle it's boring. Get out. But like I think something 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:27.320 that shines through is also just like a sincere love 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:31.600 for cinema. Like he loves movie making. He loves the 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:35.680 he loves art granularly it can be. He loves how 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:38.679 the light hits the set. He loves the mees on 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.560 sen he loves the production of making a movie. He 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:46.239 loves the people he makes movies with. There's those incredible 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:48.520 pictures of him when he was trying to get Laura 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:51.520 don an oscar for Mulholland Drive, and he's sitting with 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:54.360 the cow just on the side of the street outside 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:57.640 the Academy with the big you know, for your consideration, 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:01.560 Laura Dunn, this was just a man who's crely loved 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:06.199 his country, his job, his life, the people he worked with, 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:10.280 someone like Kyle McLaughlin, who is just such a fantastic 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.960 talent who he feels, you know, he wrote a piece recently, 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:16.440 and it was such a beautiful read basically about how 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:20.360 David Lynch created him, Like there's no version of him 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:22.600 that exists today without Lynch. 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.559 Yeah, plucked him from obscurity, in his words. 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:29.200 Because he did June, he did Blue Velvet, he did 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:33.000 Twin Peaks. He managed to craft this enigmatic kind of 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.840 career out of just working with this man who saw 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:38.600 something in him and who was willing to play with 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:41.679 him on screen. And I do think that Twin Peaks 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:46.480 probably changed the trajectory of David Lynch's career in obviously 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:50.719 many ways, like you're making mainstream TV, your name is 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:53.559 getting out there, but more so in like a way 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:59.320 of crafting a very passionate fandom. Like I worked at 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:03.280 a movie thing in London called Genesis Cinema, and I 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:07.080 worked at the bar and we hosted the Twin Peaks 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.680 fest right one year, and I got to meet matgen 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:14.800 Amchik and Sherylyn Fenn and it was really incredible. But 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:18.880 the passion that the fans have for that show, I've 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.840 only seen a kin is like comic Con. 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:25.920 It's kind of amazing that it became a thing. 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:30.640 People dressed up, they queued up they paid for signatures. 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:34.280 Especially when the show came out, people who loved David 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:36.920 Lynch at first were very confused by it because it 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:38.920 was straight. It was kind of a straight down the 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:41.080 line at the beginning. 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:44.280 Yes, yeah, in the beginning, Yes, in the beginning, yeah yeah, 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:48.960 yeah yeah, as a murder mystery kill the ponds, because 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:54.200 you're right, there is this wonderful mainstream hook of the 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:55.960 murder mystery, and then it just evolves. 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:57.440 Well, let's let's use this as. 0:14:57.320 --> 0:14:59.000 A jumping up the plane to talk about his work. 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:04.040 Let's talk about his work starting with his first full 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:09.120 length feature film, nineteen seventy Seven's a raser Head. Very 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:13.320 much an art film, very much a film. Another film 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:17.480 that I think is one of the great modern black 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:22.240 and white films. It's about this guy, a racer head 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:28.200 who you know, goes about living his very strange life 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:34.600 in a unknown kind of industrial industry city and he 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:38.880 has a lot of kind of dreamlike things happen to him. 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:43.360 He has a there's a child involved. But it's really 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:49.400 a kind of collection of visual tone poems that are 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.720 really quite striking. It feels as if you are having 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:55.640 a full length dream, is what yes film is. 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:59.120 Like, I think it does establish that dream like nature 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.680 that becomes a really big part of most of Lynch's films, 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:07.960 especially Blue Velvet and Lost Highway, Amahalan Drive, and also 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.680 I would say as well to a point June. I 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:12.880 feel like a lot of what he did with June 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:17.000 was like incredibly dreamlike and strange. But yeah, this was 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:19.920 definitely the ultimate. Like when I was a teenager, you'd 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.040 be like, oh my god, have you seen a rais ahead? 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:24.240 Like you got to watch this, and we'd get it 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:26.080 and everyone would freak out to see that a rais 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.720 ahead baby, and I was I was overly scared of 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:32.760 it as a child before i'd seen it, before realizing 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:36.080 like anything, it's kind of you know these funny. 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:37.760 It's mostly very weird and funny. 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.840 Yeah, adults will always tell you like, oh, you got 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:42.720 this is going to be really scary, and then you 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.040 watch it and you're like, well, this is old. You 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:46.840 know that I remember having that feeling. 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:49.200 Well, I will say one of the things that I 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:53.040 think that is present from the start of Lynch's filmography, 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.239 and it's right here one is the kind of dreamlike 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.960 the dreamlike quality, the intertextual quality. What I think he 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:06.119 builds that dream like feeling with takes of unusual length. 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:09.199 I don't mean long, and I don't mean short. I 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:11.880 just mean longer than you would expect for a two 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:16.000 shot conversation or shorter than you would expect for like 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:22.000 a reaction shot, and shooting from strange angles, like angles 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.760 that almost look like you're observing a scene from on 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.640 the set, but in a different way. And then also 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:36.760 this juxtaposition of normalcy and life with something really scary 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:38.000 and gross. 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:42.040 Like, yeah, definitely, And I mean I always remember reading 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:44.920 Jennifer Lynch, who is now a filmmaker in Home Right, 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.639 like David Lynch's daughter. She talked about how like she 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:51.000 was born with like clubbed feet and had to have 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:56.760 a lot of operations, and the kind of unexpected nature 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.280 of her being born and then not being born disabled 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:01.840 was like a big packed on the movie. But also 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:04.800 so was living in Philadelphia, Like he loved Philadelphia, but 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.040 he was living in Philadelphia in the seventies and he 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:09.639 was seeing some stuff he was seeing. 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.639 Referred to it as a very racist place, but also 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:13.280 he liked it. 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:17.480 Yeah, he was like he's really going through he was 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:20.399 living in a what I think again, his love of 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.399 like different sides of America and seeing this kind of 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:26.040 industrial poverty stricken place. 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.040 Also, something I think about a lot with The Raizorhead 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:31.639 is like af I thought it was gonna be like 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.040 a twenty minute movie, so they greenlit it because only 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.000 had twenty one page screenplay, but David Lynch obviously was 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:41.080 like no, So it took like over five years to make, 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:45.800 and he was basically living off the fact that his 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:50.920 childhood friend Jack Fisk and Sissy Spacek were just donating 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:53.880 money to him. So it's essentially that thing as well 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:58.439 of like you probably never get David Lynch without having 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:02.520 a benefactor who saw that it was worth making this 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:07.399 movie and for years supported him in his ability to 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:09.800 make this movie that would go on to obviously spark 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:14.040 this massive Korea And I think as well as something 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:17.800 that's really interesting about a rais Ahead is it couldn't 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:21.480 feel more tonally different than The Elephant Man, which is 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:25.359 a pretty straight down the line like loose of a 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:29.680 bio drama. Yeah, yeah, But the interesting thing about it 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:33.720 is Elephant Man also deals in ideas and notions of 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:38.600 like disability and acceptance and finding acceptance in a world 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.000 where you are different, So I think it's interesting to 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:44.560 kind of see those themes emerge. But yeah, obviously, then 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:50.639 Elephant Man becomes like this massive cultural success. It's nominated 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:55.560 for many many awards. John hurt Is obviously absolutely fantastic. 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:58.359 It's definitely one of those movies in the annals of 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:03.679 like disability cinema, kind of like Freaks. Freaks is still 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.560 pretty much the only major studio movie that's ever been 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:13.040 made with a majority disabled cast until the Woody Allen 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:16.159 movie Champions recently, which was more of like a Bobby 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:19.080 Fairley comedy. So, I you know, good for the actors 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:21.120 who got paid in that. I love that for them, 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:24.280 But like Freaks was like that, it's imperfect, but for 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:26.400 a lot of disabled people, there's a lot to love 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:26.879 about it. 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:29.399 Or Revenge Film, I think exactly. It's a kind of 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:31.280 our great revenge film. 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:33.439 Revenge film, and also a film that, even though it 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:35.439 was sold on this notion of like, oh, look at 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:38.480 the freaky disabled people, it actually humanizes the disabled people. 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:41.879 It's from their perspective. From me, take revenge, you. 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:46.240 Get it exactly. So you mentioned the Elephant Man. 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:50.080 Nineteen eighty Elephant Man, produced by Mel Brooks. 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.320 Yeah, which he did uncredited so people wouldn't think it 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:54.800 was a comedy. And with the Elephant Man, it's another 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:57.560 movie where you know, nowadays we have incredible actors like 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:01.199 Adam Pearson, who you can currently see in a Different 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.320 Man with Sebastian Stan, but you know, in the eighties 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.440 they used John Hutt, they use prosthetics, and it still 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:12.640 is a movie that is definitively a humanizing movie about risabilities. 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:15.199 And I think that was like a huge moment. But 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:18.280 then again, you get the next movie he does is Dune. 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:21.520 You know, four years later that's crazy. 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:28.000 Well, what's fascinating is so Elephant Man is, along with 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:31.399 the straight story, I think his most to your point 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.159 down the line film. It's a yeah, beginning middle and 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:37.720 beginning middle, there are Lynchian things in there. The dreamlike 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:40.680 quality is really pushed to the periphery. If it's there 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:44.200 at all, it's there because of the stark and beautifully 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:49.119 rich black and white photography. What is very Lynchian is 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:52.800 his depiction of cruelty, which is stark in the film. 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.119 But it's a regular it's a quote unquote normal movie, 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:59.200 and I think off of the strength of that comes 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:03.520 Dune he is tapped to adapt and direct the adaptation 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:06.320 of one of the great sci fi works, with the 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:11.399 idea that Dune would become as you know, Return of 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:14.080 the Jedi had come out in nineteen eighty three, so 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:17.639 the movie industry is thinking, where's our next star wars. 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:20.240 Here's a classic sci fi why don't we do that. 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:23.439 Let's tap this guy, David Lynch, up and coming filmmaker, 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:26.000 young filmmaker in the mold of George Lucas who was 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:29.720 also an art film guy. THHX you know is a 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:32.520 very strange film, akin to erase her head in its 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:34.920 own way. So I think they were thinking, Okay, here's 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:39.040 our big chance, and it doesn't quite work out the 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:42.680 way either Lynch or the studio on it. Lynch has 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:45.159 complained that they took his vision away, they took his 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:47.760 power away. That said, well, I was saying this before 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:50.280 we turn the MIC's onto Joell, I get it. This 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:52.959 is a big studio picture. Like I remember as a 0:22:53.119 --> 0:22:57.359 young kid that they had Kyle McLaughlin in the full 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:01.760